


Recurring Event

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [102]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Bonding, Character Study, Gen, Some Fluff, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25328557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Torrent Command's Strategy Meetings sometimes includes playing pool and avoiding realizations.  Some of those things work better than others.
Relationships: CT-5597 | Jesse/CT-6116 | Kix
Series: Soft Wars [102]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 39
Kudos: 393
Collections: TexWash's Must Reads and Rereads





	Recurring Event

“The battle was a wash. The squad flowed in like a tidal wave and made a clean sweep of the valley. They rained their attacks down on their opponents, flushed them out of their positions, squelched their strategies, swamped their routes.”

“ _Stop_!” Kix groans.

“And lo did the enemy fold -”

“I’m warning you-”

“- like _damp flimsi_.”

Jesse expects the smack. He doesn’t expect it to be delivered via cue, or across the back of his thighs.

“You earned that,” Kix informs him primly once the karking _reverb_ stops echoing. Jesse’s got opinions about that assertion. Most of them are swears. “And is it my turn now? Thanks.”

“It is _not_ your turn actually.” But his protests are, as is absolutely typical, summarily ignored. Kix breezes past, pats his rear ( _ow you karking curdled genetic pour-off_ _that kriffing stings like a -_ ) knocks his shoulder and steals his chalk while he’s flustered.

If Jesse’d had anything in his trouser back pockets he’s sure they’d have been lifted too, just because. Damn he loves this asshole.

“Shut it,” he orders. Hardcase ignores him. Even when Jesse rolls him his dirtiest eye and gestures something unspecifically menacing with the cue, the gunner cackles undeterred. Karking typical.

“Remember when you used to be cute and respectful?” he laments.

“No.” Both officers, no hesitation. Jesse sighs. He suffers.

The Dumbass of the Week chair sports a little sign reserving it for Ringo, though at least two separate people have scribbled dissent and nominated various pilots. Around its feet, Murder, Lady Of The Slaughter toodles through the carpeting, beeping sighs at each stray kernel of bangcorn or crumb of tuberchip she finds and chiming complaints that they stole the vibroblade someone had stickyplasted to her chassis.

She runs pointedly over Jesse’s foot on her way to the mousedroid charging port behind the couch. They both know her proximity sensors are perfectly calibrated. Jesse gets _no_ respect around here. For that, he steals a handful of Kix’s roasted nuts and makes sure to eat them as messily as possible. Murder chimes an insult to both Jesse’s source design and his fabrication process.

Kix eyes the scatter of balls on the green like a battlefield, already calculating angle and force and order of elimination. Pool was his choice; almost always is and he pretends it isn’t because he’s excellent at it. Oh no, it’s just a _coincidence_ that he and Hardcase will always choose pool, or dart throwing or weighted sack throwing or pin-bowling or name-your-ranged-projectile-activity-thinly-disguised-as-passtime.

They’ve both vetoed cards. Apparently Jesse cheats. Hypocrites.

“I just find it funny and kinda nauseating that Kix acts like a you-caliber hooligan to flirt with you.”

Speaking of hypocrisy.

Kix is already bent over his shot but he freezes, pulls his cue up before the pure _idiocy_ makes him bungle it. Their eyes meet.

‘I’m gonna tell him,’ his growing grin proclaims.

‘Don’t you dare,’ Jesse glares. He has _so many credits_ riding on this. Hypothetical credits sure, promises of the future when they’re actually employed and making an income, but _so many_ of them. If Hardcase and Commander Wolffe move in together before he figures it out, Jesse’s set for _life_.

Kix rolls his eyes speakingly but relents.

“What? You guys? What?”

“Nothing Hardcase,” Jesse says as convincingly as he’s able.

“You’ll figure it out some day,” Kix hints. Just for that, Jesse slips a hand inside his jacket, flips on the itty bitty remote that controls the itty bitty gyroscope Ahsoka mounted in the white ball. Her work’s gotten so good. Could barely even see the seam, and Anakin showed her how to fill it with the same caulk they use on their armor and sand it down to invisible. Tinker and them had given her a standing ovation.

Once they go Home, after what Kix has taken to calling All This Unpleasantness, Torrent’s going to have to build them a workshop and just let em go wild. Even if Jesse wasn't a betting man he’d put money on what they could accomplish without limits or interruption.

Just a little less spin than Kix intends, or maybe a little more Jesse’s brain doesn’t work in vectors. The white ball taps a blue, and it nudges up just a hair shy of toppling over the edge into the pocket. Such a shame.

The medic glares. Jesse doesn’t grin. “My turn.”

“My turn!” Hardcase protests.

“Mine. You both take a handicap when we play with projectiles, stop trying to change the rules.”

“You’re cheating,” Kix contemplates, but it’s idle speculation and not actual accusation. “Somehow. Did you angle the table?”

“You have the lowest possible opinion of me, I should be insulted.” Jesse muses, taps his lip. “No, I _am_ insulted. ‘Angle the table’. What do you take me for?”

“Reprobate.”

“A scoundrel!”

Both officers. No hesitation. Jesse’s so proud. The stench of respectability won’t ever fully infect him if he has anything to say about it.

“You are both very hurtful,” he sniffs, nudges Kix roughly out of the way and eyes up his shot. Takes a second to flip the remote off.

Kix picks himself a particular spot along the rec room wall, cocks a hip up on it and settles in. Jesse circles the table twice before he figures out why. Ideal angle to get a shot at that one blue ball puts him right in Kix’s line of sight. Possibly to watch for the alleged cheating. Jesse hopes he enjoys the view anyway. He leans over his shot.

The table bed has some bounce to it, symptom of being surfaced with repurposed plastiturf they’d saved the last time they had to replace part of the running track. A little extra friction too, since the same. The edges are a bit higher than standard, given the table was formerly a decommed holodisplay.

Everything they have that isn’t for the war was rescued and repurposed, and maybe Jesse’s biased but he can’t help but feel that everything’s a little more _theirs_ because of it. They should thank the Guard for starting that; thank the Captain for adopting it with the same ferocity he adopts anything else.

Jesse doesn’t clench his jaw. He doesn’t want to think about Captain Rex right now. Captains at all. Tonight is LT-only for a reason.

“Hey so that report, how did the rest of it go?”

Jesse sighs. So much for that. He taps the blue in, easy as muja pie.

“So they flood the pass,” he continues. He snags Kix’s chalk with a halfhearted glare at his medic and dusts his cue. “Neatly written up in the report and everything: ‘leveraging lessons learned from the Valor campaign on Zardossa Stix, troopers proceeded to divert a river into the path of the oncoming forces’. What the report _doesn’t_ mention is the multiple tons of soap they _also_ threw down there. This infant, tank-wet-”

“Jesse for Force’s sake!” One of these days Kix is gonna hurt himself trying to be all disapproving while trying not to laugh. “Puns are the lowest form of humor.”

“Oh Wow!” Jesse exclaims in his brightest voice. “And all this time I thought it was sarcasm!”

The roasted nut winged at his head was both well deserved and well worth it. Jesse couldn’t muster up an ounce of contrition if he wanted to. Kix grumbles, but it’s pointless when Jesse can see the star-bright spark of his amusement lingering in his eyes. “What kind of example are you setting for poor Hardcase?”

The nut rolls under the pool table. Murder darts after it and insults Jesse as she goes. Unfair.

“The worse,” the gunner sings gleefully. “I’ve picked up so many bad habits I’m probably not fit for civilized society!”

“The best,” Jesse counters. “Any bad habits you have you came with and were probably recruited _for_. Are you going to let me finish?”

“Are you going to keep punning the entire time? Say yes. I wanna see how long before Kixy decks you.”

Jesse sniffs his most imperious. “Brawling is for plebeians,” he sneers. “Kix is too classy a broad-”

“Do you want him?” Kix interrupts sotto vocce. “Slightly battered, doesn’t take much feeding. I’ll sell him to you for a dessert ration and a nuna.”

Hardcase giggles. “Aw don’t be mean Kix, he’s worth at least a meiloorun and an eeopie.” He grins. His whisper isn’t even remotely subtle. “But probably only a little one.”

“I hope you two are _very_ happy together,” Jesse snips. “Since I’m so unwanted.”

“Ha, nah, you can keep each other! No offense Kix but I like em a little more rough and tumble.”

“Are you _sure_ about that?” Kix grumbles. “Are you _very sure_?”

It’s hard to tell what Hardcase deliberately ignores and what he just doesn’t notice.

“ _As I was saying_.” Jesse pauses. Grunts in disgust. “What was I saying.”

“Soap,” Kix volunteers.

“ _Soap_.” Jesse taps the tip of his cue to shake off the excess dust. “This tank-wet infant bubbles up a plan-”

“For _Force’s sake Jesse_!”

“’Tank-wet’ is a legitimate turn of phrase. Stop interrupting.” One shot, and the octarine ball sinks. “The Lieutenant who I’m sure is completely dry regardless of looking like he was decanted something like 20 minutes before, reports in to his commander, chipper as a gundark, cute as a wooly vulptex and as genuine as the floor of a bantha pen before the morning turn out, if you get what I mean.” Another shot and the purple ball sits on the edge for a breathless second before deciding to drop. Not at all helped by a little pulse of a gyroscope nope.

“‘Just followed the example set by the Valors,’ he chirped. ‘Force I love the Valors’ he simpered. ‘I would kiss them square on the mouth’ he burbled.”

“How much would it cost to skip this part?”

“ _The Valors_ ,” Jesse barrels on ignoring the credit-chip gallery commentary. “Had a much larger river to work with on Zardossa Stix. So this slick-shiny kid had a brilliant idea: he was a Requisitions drone, just finished up receiving and tagging Star Corps’ entire monthly supply of laundry detergent. Soap, small river, oncoming enemy ground troops. He added the numbers and came up with the single most hilarious slip-and-slide ever recorded on a HUD.”

Hardcase cackles and Kix is grinning wide as Jesse is.

“He didn’t,” Kix denies.

“Ever seen what happens when a droideka rolls full speed into a wall of suds?” Jesse contends. “Video's in the official report. Someone added cantina music to it.”

The gunner hoots, crumbles over half wheezing. Good thing he dropped his snacks or he’d choke. Murder spits a garble, zooms over to vacuum up the whole thing, bag included, and blat a pissy mousy insult at their manners.

“There were a grand total of seven of them manning the supply outpost. But the tinnies were so distracted the bunch of them just strapped on jetpacks and went on bombing them like fish in a barrel.”

Jesse’s _own chalk_ soars through the air and slams right between his eyes. Wounded! _Friendly fire_!

“Melodramatic baby,” the love of Jesse’s life coos.

“Wounded! Where has the love gone?”

Kix’s lips barely twitch but his eyes narrow in the equivalent of a cackle. “Down the drain.”

Ugh. Jesse can’t believe he fell for such a hypocrite. His next shot misses; he doesn’t even know what he was even aiming for. Hardcase taps himself in.

The rec room is warm in tone and temperature. The briefing room it used to be is almost entirely hidden under throws and behind pillows. The engineers banded together to up the heat here, like they did in Domino’s dorms and a couple other isolated rooms. Vode are built to be comfortable in a fairly wide range of climate. Anakin is almost always cold any time they’re void-side. It’s not a hardship to heat the places he spends the most time a little.

Hot air floats out of ankle-high vents and Jesse’s half tempted to kick his shoes off like the others have, wriggle his toes in the warm carpet. He thinks for a second, then mentally shrugs. Why _shouldn’t_ he? His socked feet sink into the deep pile and it’s almost distracting enough that he nearly misses Murder making an attempt at his boots. He puts them up on the couch, to both Murder and Kix’s disgust. He’s much too comfortable to care. He wiggles his toes in the carpet.

There’ll be no cold floors, when they finally go Home. Jesse’s decided.

Hardcase paces the table and he’s quiet as he considers. That’s unusual enough to be noteworthy. He’s almost never truly silent. Even when he’s not speaking he’s snapping or tapping or humming under his breath. “So,” he starts. The preceding pause, the serious tone: whatever Hardcase says next is going to be either incredibly infuriating or horrifically insightful. “Does that mean you’re gonna stop trying to hate him?”

Or both.

“It’s just,” he persists and Jesse tries not to glare. Doesn’t let himself cross his arms or pull back defensive. “He sounds _really_ Torrent. And the Captain _never_ steals folks from other companies so he must be something special. And I’ve only talked to him for five minutes and he’s really easy to like you know. If you stop trying not to.”

It’s a Lieutenants-only night. It wouldn’t have been right to invite Captain Rex to unwind with them, and exclude Captain Vaughn. They’re busy anyway. Doing captain-y things.

It’s not even a euphemism. Jesse knows Ahsoka and Stak have recruited Droidbait and are taking turns Needing Rex for something periodically the past day. Everything has always been perfectly chaste whenever they’ve burst in. Disappointing for the kids: they were far too eager to catch them at something scandalous. Rex just… likes Captain Vaughn. Likes spending time with him. Is teaching him all the nuances of being a senior officer.

It’s good. Great even. Rex needs friends who don’t technically work for him. And Jesse can’t help but approve of someone who’s clear in their goals and doesn’t bother with subterfuge. Captain Vaughn wants to duplicate Torrent strategies in Star Corps. Straightforward. He’s probably not trying to use Rex for something untoward. Jesse probably doesn’t have to worry about someone else trying to take advantage of Rex’s distressingly large heart.

“You know he’s not _actually_ Torrent command staff-”

“I’m not jealous,” he interrupts, because Hardcase’s insinuation couldn’t be any more overt. “That’s not.”

Both of them watch him. They’re trying to hide their pity but they’re shit at it. How do they possibly have the same face?

“I’m not jealous,” he repeats. He smiles, a little forced but real enough for the assurance he wants to give. “I already talked to Rex. I already know where we all stand.”

“Yeah? It’s just. When you talk to Vaughn you’re very…”

“Professional,” Kix diagnoses, like it’s terminal.

“Professional,” Hardcase agrees. “It’s kinda freaky.”

Professional. Because Captain Vaughn is young; he's friendly and cheerful; he pulled a crazy, watery stunt that got him both promoted and special assigned to them, and now he's eager to prove he's worthy of all that. But he outranks Jesse and Jesse’s not really sure how else to work with that. Professional, for now, until he gets a feel for him.

Jesse doesn’t have a problem with Captain Vaughn. This isn’t actually about Captain Vaughn at all.

He wets his lip. “It’s not strange, having new command rotate in.” Kix knows this, though he might not have thought about it for a while. Hardcase wouldn’t. “Torrent is. We’re _odd_. Captain Rex doesn’t transfer command in _or_ out. He doesn’t put ARCs up for anything more than temporary duty anywhere else. Some companies are a rotating door of command staff, people coming in to get experience in whatever the company specialty is to Build A Broader Knowledgebase or whatever the corporate line is. Torrent doesn’t do that.” Jesse swallows, knows both of them catch it. “Until now.”

It’s one thing to maintain a hard line. But when you start making exceptions? Where do you stop?

“I’m command,” he acknowledges and it’s never tasted more ashy in his mouth before. “And ARC. If anyone’s going, I’d be the first.”

He thought he knew that, back when Rex started training the brats. Jesse’d made the mistake of expressing just the right amount of interest and lingering just the right length of time in the wrong place to get dragged right into their routine. He thought he’d accepted that when he'd stepped onto Kamino, one of less than a dozen CTs granted access to ARC training that cycle.

He thought it would sting a bit but if it came to it he could leave, go wherever he’s sent and do his duty.

Kix and Hardcase watch him carefully, silent.

Dogma doesn’t think he’s ready to lead Crest squad yet but he is. The twins could become officers tomorrow, and the rest of the brats aren’t far behind. Attie, that half-chewed grizzle, is already an officer in all but name. Ahsoka could rob the Jedi temple blind at this point and Anakin now knows the best way to mark cards; Jesse would throw hands at anyone who’d suggest otherwise.

Jesse’s helped build a legacy that could continue, could _thrive_ if he left.

He doesn’t want to leave.

“Do you think the Captain would make you?” Kix asks, and Jesse gives him the droll look that deserves. No, Rex wouldn’t make him. Jesse would have his ass on the next transport out though, the moment it looked like it costs Rex anything at all to keep protecting him. Jesse won’t allow that. That’s _his_ job.

“Then go,” Hardcase booms and that? That cuts Jesse right off.

“What? Har-”

“ _Go_. If you need to, if you won’t let the Captain fight for you if it comes to that. Go. And then _come back_.”

Hardcase has only ever had one company and it shows. He’s never had his optimism beaten down, never had his edges sanded to fit where he wasn’t meant. They’ve all protected that, in their way, and not just for him. Sometimes they need Hardcase to remind them how not to be soldiers.

“It isn’t that easy,” Jesse tries. He knows it’s pointless; you’d only budge Hardcase with earthmoving equipment and maybe not even then.

“Try anyway,” the gunner dismisses. He’s intent, and Jesse finds he can’t brush his words off. “That’s what Vaughn’s doing; he’s here and he’s gonna make his way back to Star to make them better. So try. And if it doesn’t work keep trying. And while you’re trying, wherever you are build _Torrent_. You got everything of the best of us right here.” He taps his own chest sharply. “So wherever you land, you can make everyone there feel that, be that too, or at least want to _try_. And just keep doing that until you either get _back_ to us or-”

He stops. They all do, for a breath.

Some things they don’t talk about. They’re going Home, one day. Every day sooner than the day before. No one says the words out loud. No one wants to risk running afoul of luck or the Force or any of the gods Winder picks up or anything that could stop them.

Not men. Jesse’s met Commander Cody. It’d take more than men to stop him.

“Or until you don’t need to anymore.”

Once, Jesse hadn’t known he needed friends like this.

Kix moves, slips up to Hardcase’s side and squeezes him gently. Jesse’s warm, the way he always is when he sees Kix be a little braver, reach out a little further, connect a little more. Hardcase shuffles into the press and by now doesn't even find anything about it remarkable. The gunner just... leans on Kix and glares Jesse down. The scout can’t do anything but return a smile. “What have I told you about being perceptive when it inconveniences me?”

“ _ K'atini! _1” Hardcase shoots back and that’s fair.

Kix taps the gunner’s shoulder one last time and slips back to his wall. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves either way. This is hardly an inevitability. Domino’s spent the past year making the entire galaxy regret separating Torrents from Captain Rex’s dubiously stabilizing influence. There’s a good chance no one even wants you.”

Jesse’s gonna marry that one some day.

“Stop borrowing trouble,” Jesse’s medic orders. Jesse salutes a kark you.

“Sir yes sir.”

The noise of disgust Hardcase makes is entirely predictable. “Ugh. Come _on_ you guys stop flirting in _public_. This poodoo is way outside my spec sheet.”

If Jesse had considered feeling any shame at all flipping the gyroscope back on, he’d have lost it right then.

Oh dear his shot goes wild. Such a pity. Jesse’s turn.

“I’m giving myself a do-over. Because somehow you’re cheating.”

“Seconded,” Kix betrays. “Motion carries. Keep going, I want to see how he’s doing it.”

“Beset on all sides,” Jesse grumbles and folds his arms. Wisely, he uses the motion to cover tucking his hands back in to his jacket to flip the remote off. Hardcase lines up a shot, sinks it. They both stare at Jesse, more accusing than when he missed. “I feel as though there’s no way for me to win here.”

“We know you too well.” Torrent’s heavy gunner smirks. He probably thinks he looks sly. “You know who _doesn’t_ know you that well yet?”

There is not a single subtle person in this Company.

“Yes. Fine. Just stop doing that thing with your face.”

“Look Jesse. Buddy. Vod’ika.”

“Please never say that again. Also I’m older.”

“Not until you win at pool. Jesse, if you wanna hate the guy, hey I’m with you 100%. It’s a pretty shitty life choice but I will back you up. But if you could _maybe_ find it deep in you to not be a jackass for like, three days, I wanna take him drinking.”

“Oh I’m going to like this,” Kix decides. “I’m going to like this a lot.”

Jesse can ignore that, easy. A little harder to ignore the bubbly feeling in his gut when Hardcase volunteers to take up a vendetta that isn’t his.

Indigestion, maybe. Jesse probably shouldn’t have had that much bread. “You are free to cavort with whoever you choose.”

“We’ll invite both the Captains next time.” It’s a little more than maybe Jesse was going to say, but it’s the right thing. Kix is good at that. Jesse doesn’t have a problem with Captain Vaughn. It isn’t fair to keep acting like he does.

“I just think he looks like a twisty kind of fighter. I wanna see how he holds up when we run into the Wolfpack.”

Kix grins, wide and pretty. “Oh really. The Wolfpack.”

“Kark those guys,” Hardcase cheers and takes his next shot straight. Sinks it without thinking. “Really gonna give em what for next time! Rub it _right_ in the Commander’s smirky face!”

Oh, Hardcase. Jesse’s going to have to run extra herd on him next time they’re dirtside on Coruscant isn’t he? That Sinker vod is Jesse’s kind; Hardcase will need someone equally squirrely at his back.

Kix turns that sith’s grin on Jesse.

“… I’m gonna tell him.”

On one glove: probably fewer fights. Probably less time getting bacta-ed and subjected to (pretty, well-sculpted) judgy-eyebrows in equal weights. On the other? _So many credits_! Enough to carpet an entire apartment!

He wiggles his toes. The carpet is softer than some bunks he’s endured. Worth it.

“Don’t you dare.”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. 'It's only pain!' Often simplified to 'suck it up'. Back  
> RIP Sir Terry. Thanks for teaching me that funny doesn't have to mean shallow, and deep doesn't have to mean dour.


End file.
